


The Smell of Earth

by ssrhpurgatory



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: F/M, Goodbyes, Unrealized Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-22
Updated: 2018-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26038066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssrhpurgatory/pseuds/ssrhpurgatory
Summary: Alexander Hilbert (with a horrible 90s alias of Karl Kelley) is about to leave for his first space mission, some time in the mid-90s. He finds himself breaking out of the quarantine facility to smell the rain... and to say goodbye to someone he forgot to say his farewells to.
Relationships: Alexander Hilbert & Original Female Character
Kudos: 1





	The Smell of Earth

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably find a home in a Hilbert backstory fic eventually, but for now I like it on its own.

The patter of rain on the roof of the quarantine building might have sent Karl to sleep, in a different time and place. But now, he was twelve hours away from launch, twelve hours away from leaving Earth for the next year and a half. Twelve hours away from being constrained to a place where the only things growing and green needed to be carefully contained and even more carefully maintained, lest their loss lead to the loss of everything else living aboard Janus Station.

The air in his temporary bedroom was too sterile, too close and still. Karl needed suddenly, desperately to be outdoors once more, to breathe in air that felt alive in his lungs. He needed to smell plants and dirt and rain, before he was four light years away from such things, locked away in a tin can surrounded by vacuum.

The locks on the doors to the to the quarantine facility were electronic, of a type that had not been a challenge to Karl for some time. The cameras were a little more trouble, but the wiring was all to easy to access, in the end. He rather suspected that, if his little escape attempt were discovered, he would be the reason for quite a few security upgrades on the place.

He would do his best to not be discovered.

The air outside was thick with humidity, every breath a struggle after a week spent with extreme climate control measures in place. It felt glorious in his lungs, smelled of wet dirt and green growing things. The rain felt just as glorious against his skin, despite the fact that he found his clothing soaked through in short order.

He started walking, wandering Goddard’s campus aimlessly. He ought to return to the quarantine facility, but he was wound too tight to sleep after the last few weeks of training for his first space mission. One good thing; the rain seemed to be keeping everyone else indoors. There would be no one to report his breach of protocol, provided he managed to sneak back into the quarantine facility as easily as he had made his exit.

Karl had not had any particular destination in mind when he had begun walking, and long habit brought him to the apartment complex he had lived in for the last six years. There, the dark window of the apartment that had been his, now emptied of all of his personal possessions and ready for a new occupant. And there, next to it, at the end of the row, a light still on in Rosemary’s apartment, shining bright onto the asphalt of the parking lot despite the late hour.

He did not know what compelled him. Perhaps the fact that he was getting cold now, and he knew he could rely on her to provide him with a towel, even if he had to put up with a lecture on breaking quarantine to get it.

Or perhaps it was the fact that, even now, she was still the closest thing he had to a friend in this place, and he had forgotten to bid her goodbye the last time he had seen her.

Or perhaps…

He shook his head.

His key card still let him in the front door of the apartment complex, and before he could think better of it, he found himself standing in front of Rosemary’s door, shivering, trying to decide whether he dared to knock.

He was still standing there, one hand raised, when the decision was made for him. The door swung open, the massive form of Al Bennett filling the frame.

“Well, now, what do we have here?” Al drawled, eying Karl in a fashion that was both blatant and invasive.

“What _do_ we have there, darling?” came Rosemary’s voice from further in the apartment. “Don’t leave me in suspense. I need to know whether or not to put my hair back on.”

Al reached out and grabbed Karl by the arm before he could escape. “He didn’t bother putting his on for you, so I can’t see as how you’d bother,” Al called over his shoulder as he herded Karl efficiently through the door. “Come on in, doctor.”

“It seems I do not have a choice in the matter,” Karl said, cautious as usual where Al was concerned.

Al pulled him to a halt just inside the door. “Rosie needs company tonight, and I can’t stay,” he said in a low rumble, barely audible to Karl’s ears.

“What are you boys gossiping about?” Rosemary called from the living room.

“Nothing in particular, Rosie!” Al clapped his hand on Karl’s arm and raised his eyebrows deliberately.

Karl sighed. “I will stay as long as I am able,” he whispered back. “But I will have to return to quarantine facility.”

“Thanks, doc.” The words were accompanied by a hearty clap to Karl’s other arm. Karl winced. “I’m heading out for real now, Rosie, but I’m leaving a strange man here to entertain you.”

“A strange man, huh?” Rosemary appeared, crowding into the cramped little front hall of her apartment with the pair of them, shoving her way up under Al’s arm and against his side. “Well, I suppose he’ll do, even if he ought to be in quarantine. Can I get you a towel, Dr. Kelley?”

“Please,” he managed to say, though Rosemary’s appearance had knocked the wind from his lungs. She had been wearing a robe and, he suspected from the shape of the body it concealed, nothing else beneath it. And her hair… well, he had known she wore wigs, but it was one thing to know it and quite another entirely to see the close-cropped fuzz of gray that hid beneath those wigs. She had always seemed preternaturally youthful, even with the wrinkles on her face that betrayed her age. But just at this moment, she looked old.

Rosemary shoved Al’s arm off of her, where it had settled across her shoulders and snugged her comfortably against his side. “I’ll be right back. Don’t you move.”

Al checked his watch. “I’ll leave you in the doc’s capable hands, darling. Time for me to get on the road.”

“I’m sure you’ll be back to pester me when you can,” Rosemary’s voice echoed from the bathroom.

“You can count on it.” And then Al was gone, and Karl was alone in the apartment with Rosemary.

He was shivering now. Rosemary had the air conditioning on in her apartment, no doubt to drive out the humidity that had been so welcome to him when he had first escaped the quarantine facility. Rosemary emerged from the bathroom and handed the towel over with a frown. “I’m going to get you my spare robe, too,” she said, tucking the robe she was wearing more securely in place.

Karl followed her to her bedroom door, using the towel to remove as much moisture as possible from his body as he went. He accepted the robe with a word of quiet thanks.

“Do you want to get undressed first?” Karl blushed at the question, and Rosemary let out a quiet, kind laugh. “No, I suppose not. Well, it’ll keep you from freezing, in any case.” She went to her thermostat next, shoving it up a few degrees. “How do you feel about whiskey instead?”

Karl wrapped the robe around himself. It was thick terrycloth, and while it was not exactly keeping him warm, it was doing an admirable job of wicking away some of the moisture that still soaked his shirt and trousers.He took in the mess of her living room, papers piled high on most flat surfaces and a few that were decidedly slanted. One of the lesser piles had a glass containing an inch or so of brown liquid perched on it. “I should not drink before launch,” he said with a sigh.

“Well, let me know if you change your mind. I won’t tell if you don’t.” Rosemary bustled over to the couch, snagging the glass along her way, and curled up in one corner of it. She patted the cushion next to her. “Now, how about you come tell me why you felt the need to break out of a secure facility tonight to come see little old me.”

Karl snorted and crossed the room to her side, lowering himself gingerly onto the couch. “I did not break out to see you,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Oh, such flattery.” But her voice was low and amused all the same, and he decided to tell her the truth.

“I wanted to smell dirt one more time.”

She laughed, not unkindly. “There’ll be dirt on Janus station.”

“But there will not be rain.” It was still coming down outside, a light patter that could be heard against Rosemary’s living room window.

“I suppose not,” she said with a little sigh. She took a sip of her drink and winced. “Or if there is, I imagine something quite horrible will have to have happened first.”

“Mm.” He tilted his head to one side, watching Rosemary. She was cradling her glass between her hands and staring thoughtfully down at it, a little frown puckering her brow. “Al told me you needed company tonight,” he said.

Her eyes flashed up to meet his, wide and wild. “I can’t imagine what put that idea in his damn fool head.”

“Do you need company?” Perhaps it was a foolish thing, to ask that question. He regretted it immediately; Rosemary straightened up, her gaze cool and distant as she looked him over.

“Why did you come to my door tonight, Dr. Kelley?”

Karl sighed and leaned forward, resting his forearms against his knees. “Habit.”

“Habit.”

He shot her a sideways glance. “As if I were walking home from lab for the day.”

“That got you to the apartments. But my door?” She raised her eyebrows at him.

“I did not say goodbye,” he muttered gruffly in the direction of the floor.

“Oh.”

Karl glanced her way again. She looked blank. Not startled, he thought, but confused.

“Why would you bother? I’ll be getting weekly reports from you anyway,” she said.

He reached out cautiously and laid his hand on her upper arm. She was warm beneath his fingers, but even so, she shivered at his touch.

Her face was still carefully blank.

“I did not want to go without saying goodbye. That is all.” He cleared his throat and got to his feet. “Forgive me. I should go.”

There was no sound from Rosemary as he got to his feet, as he walked to the door of her bedroom and left the robe and towel hanging off the handle, as he made his way to the front door of her apartment.

“Wait!” There was the soft patter of bare feet against carpet, moving fast, and Rosemary was at his side. Karl turned to look at her.

“Stay safe out there, you hear?” She had an anxious little frown between her eyebrows once more, and Karl was suddenly filled with the absolutely ridiculous notion that he would like to press his lips to that crease and flatten it out.

He shook his head to clear it. Obviously the result of being overtired. “I will.”

She swallowed hard, and suddenly he was enveloped in her arms, crushed tight and close in a hug. “I will be really angry with you if you die out there. I won’t have anyone to give my micro projects to.”

Karl laughed, because if he did not laugh he would start crying. “I will come back. I promise.”

“Well, good.” Rosemary released him from the hug and took a step back, her hands still on his upper arms as she looked up at him. “As long as you promise.” Her tone of voice made it clear that she knew he could not promise any such thing, but he appreciated her confidence in him, all the same. “Now you get back on to quarantine. You’re launching in eight hours, after all.”

Karl did not want to go anywhere. He wanted to sink back against Rosemary’s body, to bury his face against her neck, to feel her arms firm around him.

Goddard Futuristics did not feel like home, even six years after he had first come there.

Rosemary’s arms had.

He cleared his throat. “I should go. Thank you for the towel.”

Rosemary nodded seriously and dropped her hands from his arms. “I’ll wave to you from the crowd tomorrow,” she said with a little smile.

Karl nodded. “I will look for you.”

They stood there quietly for a few minutes longer, Karl compelled by something he did not understand to stay at her side. And then, with a final, awkward nod, he turned and left.


End file.
